Meeting a veteran in New Orleans makes an impact

There are three streetcar lines in New Orleans, St. Charles, Canal Street and the Riverfront.

We were determined to ride each one. And we did. It made for a very long afternoon.

Not that it wasn’t interesting.

We saw the Garden District which lives up to the name, mature trees, lovely shrubs and flowers, magnificent homes, many as big as hotels.

We passed Tulane and Loyola Universities and Audubon Park.

There were Mardi Gras beads dripping from trees along the way and glimpses of side streets leading into areas that promised more exciting residences.

But, it was the people who intrigued.

We had left one streetcar and were waiting to transfer to another when we met a delightful couple who also were tourists and we started chatting about this and that.

A young woman in casual clothes and wearing a small backpack waited with us. She seemed a bit unsteady on her feet and after a brief assessing glance, we ignored her.

Then, we realized that as we were asking each other questions about things that were happening in New Orleans, where certain restaurants were and the best way to get to the Jazz Festival and where did Anjelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and Emerill and Sandra live, she was mumbling answers.

‘How do you know all that?’, asked one of our new acquaintances.

‘I’m a local’, she answered.

Seems this fresh-faced, wobbly on her pins, informative guide was a Marine veteran, wounded by an IED. She had come home to New Orleans. This afternoon, she was taking the streetcar downtown to Jackson Square in the French Quarter to meet friends.

Wearing a black and white checked shirt over jeans with sunglasses pushed up to the top of her head, she looked more like a college student than someone who had served in the military overseas.

She admitted to having gone through basic training at Parris Island and remembered being allotted seven minutes to eat lunch, something that still aggravated her.

“I wanted to be like Rosie the Riveter, like my grandmother. I wanted to serve my country,” she said.

How and where, we wanted to know and were told that when tested, she was found to have an affinity for that dark part of military life called Special Ops.

“I can’t say where I was or what I did, but I can tell you that even though a burka may be made of natural fabrics, it is still very hot under one.”

When we left the streetcar to transfer once again to the Riverfront Line, she asked us to walk across the plaza with her. Each paving brick had a name and she pointed to one and said, “That’s me, that’s my name and the brick next to is has my sister’s name on it.”

She left us shortly after that and limped away in the direction of Decatur Street.

We have all known veterans.

They march in parades and we whistle and cheer as they pass.

We appreciate their service to our country and honor them as a nation once a year on Memorial Day.

But, sometimes, it takes only a few minutes with one wounded in the prime of life to bring home the realization of how much these veterans have paid and how much we owe them.